February 28, 2017 - Published in Lodging Magazine - UniFocus—a system that assists service industry businesses to increase asset value and reduce labor costs—has advanced their training procedures for users to expand their knowledge in business-improving processes.
By continuing training, customers who are already knowledgeable in UniFocus’s systems can manage and adjust procedures that might not work for their company. While the advanced training for all business professionals is created as a supplement to users who are already familiar with UniFocus’ strategies, varying generations will expect and demand more from the experience—a younger manager may expect different outcomes than an older, more experienced one. “I think we left behind us a long time ago training that was just not interactive, so I think it is critical in adult training, especially in today’s day and age, to engage the individuals who will go with you into training to make it more experiential,” says Mark Heymann, co-founder and CEO of UniFocus.
Training focuses on three main areas of expertise: scheduling, forecasting, and surveying tools. Scheduling and forecasting are linked throughout the service industry; predicting higher customer retention changes how scheduling is handled. Customers who walk into an understaffed restaurant and have to wait upwards of 20 minutes to be sat with empty tables around the establishment are more likely not to come back. Situations like these occur when forecasting has not been predicted correctly. Heymann says, “Part of it is a matter of having systems that accurately enable you to convert volume into required hours.”
Consequentially, overstaffing a schedule with too many employees without many customers creates an atmosphere where workers and the business are not generating a profit. Training helps companies to better predict the amount of customers versus how many staff members are needed for a shift. “The other part that is critical in the service industry is making sure you have the right people with the right skills at the right time,” Heymann says.
Surveying tools rely on accountability and the revenue generation a business produces to enhance performance and understand processes to make adjustments where needed for improvement. Heymann says, “You have to find ways to create efficiencies, better utilization, and sometimes even looking at your operating standards to understand what is critical to deliver from a customer experience standpoint and what items may not be as critical.”
Advanced training in UniFocus’s procedures will help businesses purport their own systems and strategies to adjust company practices. Service-oriented companies can generate more customers and revenue by furthering their knowledge in systems like UniFocus to improve their own business. As Heymann suggests, “It’s always important for organizations to look at the cost of doing business and recognize that if they have good standards, its not only impacting your cost of doing business but it also impacts your quality of doing business because standards impact both sides of the equation.”
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